


Foolish Heart

by chairdesklamp



Series: KSH (Kazokuseirituhen) 1985 [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: 1980s, AIDS crisis, Eat my validating messages, History Lesson in a Fic, M/M, Trans Kuchiki Byakuya, Trans Zaraki Kenpachi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 13:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chairdesklamp/pseuds/chairdesklamp
Summary: Five of Fuso's finest have been sent to ensure the souls dying horrifically at one of the literal die-ins during the AIDS crisis (that are erased from history, and this makes me mad) make it to Soul Society, because Liberion's attitude is in line with Regean's. Alongside with a glimpse of what it meant to be gay in Regean's America, Kenpachi is protective of Byakuya, and tells Renji why. Also, a wee bit of 1980s interior design. Again with trans reproduction themes because there is way too much gatekeeping--from governments to other trans people, in what's 'acceptable' to feel or not in order to be 'worthy' of basic respect.





	Foolish Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> -Kenpachi had a lot of trouble coming up with a name, didn’t he? He’s not particularly imaginative, and I have a reason now that he didn’t come with one. 
> 
> -An ikkaku is…I forget the English name, but it was somewhat of an online meme in English for a while. I’ll call it “Unicorn seal that lives in Alaska.” It’s not explained here, but in KSH, Ikkaku is Inuit, Yumichika’s Vietnamese, and also, Renji’s the only cis person here, though most here don’t know about each other. Eat my representation. Though Ikkaku and Yumichika were more textbook dysphoric and got cisnormative bodies upon death. So yeah, Kenpachi is trans and was never even really that dysphoric about it. I went to a job fair yesterday (13 Mar 2019) held via the trans program at my clinic, for trans people, met a bunch of other trans people, particularly other trans men, talked about not being textbook dysphoric about everything, got some validating feedback, as well as a lead on safe housing (being constantly threatened with rape and death because I was outed in my building), went home, put on a VHS I made off the computer of Bleach so it could just be something I’ve seen so much I wouldn’t get invested in it but there’d be something in the background, it was Kenpachi v. Noitora, and finally figured out Kenpachi’s backstory, because not a whole lot was given for most anyone in canon, if they got any.
> 
> -Renji grew up in British-occupied Wales in the late 19th Century, so he speaks English with a RP accent. As always, French quotes (« ») means ‘speaking something other than Japanese’, and they’re in D.C., so the default assumption is English.
> 
> -If you’re curious, Stella’s absolutely a lesbian. Not only was beard marriages between lesbians and gay men common, because just like Joshua, you could be fired and also evicted for being queer. Also, just like Stella and Raymond, it literally was lesbians holding the gay men as they died in the AIDS crisis. 
> 
> -Fifty USD in 1984 is well over a hundred now. Chop meat was under a dollar a pound and cigarettes were about a dollar a pack.
> 
> -Tatami are still used to measure in real estate (for a room, not a house) in Japan today.
> 
> -Kan, the unit of currency given for Soul Society (Fuso, in this case), is actually a very old unit of Japanese currency in real life. It was a bundle of coins or something, so 200 of those would probably be equivalent to the exorbitant fees for healthcare in the US today, which fit better into a place like Inuduri than a supposed “first world nation,” if you think about it.

“Foolish heart  
Hear me calling  
Stop before  
You start falling  
Heed my warning  
You’ve been wrong before  
Don’t be wrong anymore”—“Foolish Heart,” Steve Perry, USA, 1984

 

Sending a Hell butterfly off through the outdoor lobby of the motel as he approached the door, Kenpachi entered the room seeing his own men asleep as he’d left them.

Knowing that it was unlike the two of them to be lying apart…furthermore, clothed and apart, he let out a roaring laugh.

“Hey, lightweights! Wakey-wakey! Grub o’clock!”

“Oh, my head!” Yumichika moaned dramatically, covering his ears as he flipped himself over to crawl to his feet, getting straight up proving impossible.

“Fucking…” Ikkaku grumbled as he sat up, scrubbing his face with one hand.

In the adjacent suite, Byakuya and Renji were also awoken by Kenpachi’s shouts.

Renji’s heart caught in his throat and seemed to clog it.

They were also still fully in their day clothes, but under the covers, and Renji was on his left side, arm thrown over Byakuya.

Byakuya, who was looking up at the ceiling, not at him, and did no more than blink.

“Lieutenant,” Byakuya said in a distinctly detached tone, “Please move your arm.”

Renji withdrew his arm, otherwise still.

Byakuya stood, entered the bathroom, and closed the door.

Byakuya had yet to look at Renji once.

Renji sat up and reached out his open hand so that it overlaid in his sight to where Byakuya had disappeared.

He slowly closed his hand halfway before letting it drop to his side as he lowered his head.

  
American dogs, Renji decided, were the best.

Seated on the bed next to where Renji sat on the floor, Yumichika lamented aloud, “There is no beautiful way to eat this.”

“Who cares? It’s good!” Ikkaku said, seated facing his partner, barely intelligible with a full mouth.

Byakuya leant against the counter in which a single-burner stove was embedded next to a sink in which Kenpachi was currently washing ketchup and grease off his hands, whistling.

“To what ill fortune do we owe your current mood?” Byakuya looked at Kenpachi, and the bandages visible in every place revealed by his tattered, bloody white T-shirt, out of the side of his eye.

Kenpachi leaned in closely and whispered, “They sent out some Huanglandese Reapers as well as us Fusonians, and I spent a _damn good_ night with someone almost as fun as Retu…can’t _wait_ to tell her… I know about you, and you know about me, and Yachiru might end up with a little brother or sister…”

Byakuya raised an eyebrow, watching Kenpachi dry his hands on his dungarees, “You would need to remain in the artificial body from conception to birth. Pray tell, how many of the bodies you have been issued have lasted over a _week_ before being grotesquely torn asunder in a reckless and unnecessary fight?”

Kenpachi stopped to think, counting slowly on his fingers, before giving up, “None. Ah, well, what happens happens. Can’t say ‘no’ to a good fight. ‘Course, a pretty, pretty prince like you, your thing might be the stick up your ass. Speakin’ o’ which,” He jerked his head to Renji, who was now licking mayonnaise off his fingers as he listened to Ikkaku tell a undoubtedly dirty joke and Yumichika tried to look offended.

“Eh?’ Kenpachi goaded, nudging Byakuya in the shoulder with his elbow, “You get lucky?”

Byakuya frowned, his shoulders becoming more rigid, “I wish you would refrain from such _vulgar_ terms when addressing me.”

Kenpachi slung an arm over Byakuya’s shoulders, but his whispered tone was serious, “He’s a good kid, and so are you. You play it cool, but I remember. So does Retu. Probably so’s that former Lieutenant o’ hers, Kurosaki, if he’s still kickin’ out there somewhere. I still see it. You can’t expect to heal if you close yourself off. You’re just gonna keep hurtin’.”

Kenpachi walked toward the bed his men weren’t on, upon which sat the bag, “Think about it, Kuchiki!”

He pulled out a covered plastic bowl, and shouted over once more, “Somethin’ called ‘enchilada.’ Shopkeep says it’s spicy.”

Silently, Byakuya nodded as he took the offered bowl and wrapped plastic fork, “Thank you, Captain Zaraki.”

Byakuya retreated into the other room as Kenpachi pulled out his meal, excitedly eyeing the rumoured Liberionese dish called ‘pizza.’

 

Byakuya picked at his food in the silence of his suite. Kenpachi had chosen well for him, but his mind was too troubled to eat.

Closing the container and setting it on the nightstand, Byakuya moved to stand before the window, pulling the green and pink large floral print curtains open, the Capitol building visible in the distance, a grim reminder of their mission.

The air vents below the window whipped his hair around his face.

 _Much as I feel_ , Byakuya thought of how chaotic it must have looked.

A knock came at the door.

“Captain, can I come in?”

Byakuya slowly exhaled, “Yes, you may.”

Byakuya could see Renji’s reflection—a water spot on his shirt where he must’ve dripped something, wringing a paper towel with his hands, “Captain, I—“

“Renji…”

“Yes, sir!”

“Renji, I…” He crossed his arms in front of him, almost as if hugging himself, “I do not know where should be best to go from last night. I do welcome it. However, I am also…” _Afraid_. “Uncertain.”

Byakuya turned around to face Renji. His face looked nothing but perhaps tense, but there was pain that Renji could see clearly in his eyes.

Renji came closer, slowly, until he stood in front of Byakuya, who dropped his arms.

Renji reached out tentatively and brushed Byakuya’s fingers with his own.

The tension around Byakuya’s lips relaxed as he thoughtfully watched Renji’s hand before bringing his own to meet it.

Renji clasped Byakuya’s right hand with his left, massaging Byakuya’s fingers with his thumb.

“I gotta admit, I don’t have a clue what the Hell we’re gonna do, either. Shit, I’m just scared of calling you too casually at the wrong moment,” Renji shook his head with a smile, “But life’s messy like that—there ain’t manuals for this stuff. We’re two grown men; I’m 98, and you’re…is it okay to ask…?”

“188,” Byakuya answered matter-of-factly.

“Okay, see? We’re two men _well_ old enough to handle this…”

Renji dipped his head as he recalled earlier that morning, “We just gotta make sure we _talk_ about things. You gotta let me know what’s wrong.”

Byakuya looked surprised for a moment, and then aside, to the moveable brass lamp on the wall over the nightstand, “I will have to… become accustomed to that. People of my station are…discouraged from expressing their feelings, save for in a few prescribed ways.”

“Because it might cause an international incident,” Renji asked somewhat jokingly.

The right corner of Byakuya’s lips turned just slightly upward, “Quite.”

Renji decided to try his luck now that Byakuya’s mood seemed somewhat ameliorated.

“Hey, Byakuya,” Renji said in a soft, low tone.

Byakuya looked up the requisite few centimetres between them, his body quietly reacting at Renji whispering his name that was so rarely ever used—at having someone that close.

“Mind if I kiss you?”

“I would…actually prefer if you did.”

Renji obliged, Byakuya slowly putting his arms around Renji as Renji ran his fingers through Byakuya’s hair.

 

 

“Raymond! Raymond!”

Neither this woman nor Raymond, who stood next to Renji as his corpse lay in her lap, could’ve possibly been over 30.

Raymond’s sun-worn corpse in her acid-wash jeans-clad lap told of a love of the sun and strong muscles, lost to illness and being bed-bound, a pale and sallow form of loose skin.

She brushed his curly brown hair back with her long, red nails, a wedding band on her hand matching his, his body’s left hand laying limp and dangling over the stone step.

She pulled back, her hoop earring tangled in the body’s hair, sobs wracking her body.

Raymond pleaded with her, « Stella, I’m here! I’m right here! I’m oka-! »

Renji laid a hand on Raymond’s shoulder, «She can’t hear or see you anymore.»

« Stella’s my best friend! She married me so I wouldn’t lose my house and my job! We’ve been friends since I came here with nothing but the clothes on my back—she saw past all that! Isn’t there some way I can tell her I’m okay? »

Renji sighed, sure this mission would bring him to tears—or drink—any moment, «No. But remember, one day, she’ll join you up there. »

« Up!? You mean I’m going to Heaven? »

Renji resisted the urge to roll his eyes, « All that shit the West says about people different than them is bogus. You’re made where, when, and how you’re made. Souls only go to Hell if they were cruel and hurt people intentionally enough in their lives. You’ll go to Heaven, and Stella will, too,» He gestured with his chin toward Stella, who was now wiping tears on her Espirit-logo shirt.

«But I gotta send you off immediately, or you’ll become a ghost stuck here.»

«Okay, go ahead,» Raymond said softly, not taking his eyes off Stella.

Renji flipped Zabimaru in his hand, and stamped Raymond’s forehead with its hilt.

«Good-bye, Stella. Thank you…for being my best friend…»

After Raymond became a Hell butterfly and flew away, Renji spared a last sad glance at Stella, still holding Raymond’s body, face downturned over Raymond’s prone body, and hidden under feathered black hair, shoulders shaking.

Knowing that she couldn’t see him, either, he left, regretting he couldn’t comfort her, taking comfort himself in that she would go on to find comfort among fellow mourners.

 

The soul before Byakuya hung his head and shrugged, « I guess you can just send me off. I don’t exactly have anyone to say good-bye to. Family cut me off ‘cause I’m gay. Been living in an infested cold-water flat. Guy I liked ran out on me when I got my diagnosis. Lost my job when they found out I’m gay. My body’ll probably just get tossed in a Dumpster. Lotta people’ve been callin’ me ‘the faggot.’ That ain’t my name. I _got_ a name-that ain’t it.»

Byakuya clasped his hands under his soul scarring, « What is your name? »

The soul jerked his head up so quickly that his shoulder-length brown hair flew up before settling back down, « Joshua… »

Byakuya nodded, face giving away no emotion, «Joshua. I am here to guide you to what is known, in this world, as Heaven. I shall pray that you find a fellow soul who cares very much to know your name»

Joshua smiled—a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless, «I’m glad they were wrong. I thought they were—I thought God only punished the wicked, and that He loves us. I was right, right?»

«Yes, you are.» Byakuya stamped Joshua’s forehead with the hilt of Senbonzakura, «Go forth in peace.»

After watching Joshua ascend in butterfly form, Byakuya closed his eyes, hoping for the calm of the breeze and the setting sun to wash over him.

He felt a large hand clap down hard on his shoulder.

“’Least you speak the language,” Kenpachi offered.

“I am a dignitary, and Fuso’s ties with Britannia and Liberion are strong; English was a mandatory part of my education, as was Arabic for our ties with Hammurabia.”

“Fair enough,” Kenpachi sighed, “This mission is shit.”

“I would not phrase it as such, but I can agree with the basic sentiment.”

“At least in a normal mission, those boys went out as warriors, in the glory of battle. This…is shit.”

Ikkaku approached, almost stomping, Yumichika trailing behind as one might in a funerary procession,

“I think that’s the last of ‘em,” Ikkaku sighed, sounding wearier than Kenpachi had ever heard him, “I’m gonna need something a lot stronger than mead tonight.”

Yumichika said nothing beside him, but dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve.

Renji trudged up to the rendezvous point. If he listened closely, he could still pick out Stella’s sobs from the other side of the large building.

His eyes, with no disguise of how dispirited he felt, met Byakuya’s, and Byakuya nodded, “Let us return to our lodgings.”

 

“You’re comin’ with me,” Kenpachi ordered, pointing at Renji, “So you can ask the shopkeep where the strong stuff is!”

Renji blinked for a moment, at Kenpachi, who was at the door between suites, and put his other leg through his brown corduroy trousers and pulled them up.

“Okay. Lemme wring out my hair, first, or I’ll be soaked and leave a trail behind me…and also let my captain know I’m going. He’s still in the bath.”

 

  
Renji followed Kenpachi’s hulking, flannel-clad back as they walked to where the clerk had directed.

Kenpachi crouched down and looked up at Renji, “What’d he say?”

Renji shook his head, “I’ll get it, sir.”

Kenpachi stood as Renji bent over, stopping to flip his braid over his shoulder as he searched for the ‘vodka’ and ‘gin.’

Kenpachi bent next to him and stage-whispered in his right ear, “You’re a good kid, and so’s he. He’s just got a little problems with the stick up his ass and bein’ honest to his feelings. I ain’t sayin’ it won’t be a bumpy road, but I’m rootin’ for you, kid.”

Renji’s eyes were wide and his face red as he stood, a bottle of gin in one hand, vodka in the other, but he was glad for someone to talk to about the matter, particularly his very open and frank former captain.

“A-ah, Yeah, his life’s been…” Renji blew out a sigh, “Rougher than I thought.”

“He told you ‘bout when his wife died, right?”

“A-yes, sir,” Renji hesitated, not sure how much Kenpachi knew.

“He tell you about their kids?”

“Yes.”

“How do you feel about Kuchiki’s body?”

“Well, I guess it means if we ever get _physical_ , I gotta do things a little differently than I’m used to, but other than that, I don’t think it really matters.”

Kenpachi crossed his arms, satisfied. Byakuya had told Renji, and he could go on being proud of his former subordinate.

“Good. Just makin’ sure I didn’t have to take you for a few rounds out back. Also, we’re gonna need more than that.”

They paid and left with four bags of liquor bottles.

“Pardon my impudence, Captain, but how did you know about my captain? Were you and he…” Renji grimaced—Kenpachi and Byakuya would make strange bedfellows.

Kenpachi let out a roaring laugh, “Nah. I’m _like him_ in that way. He was so fucked up over everything, Retu decided to assign me to his personal care under command of the Fourth. I don’t know shit about medicine—her and Kurosaki did that end, but there were times I had to pick him up and carry him to them. Stuff like that. Even his servants look kinda _dainty,_ yanno?”

“You’re also transsexual? Huh.”

“Yeah—we may be Fusonian, but my squad’s still based on machoism and virility and all that shit, so if you go spreading it around like influenza, I’ll have to gut you and decorate the barracks with your entrails to ensure my men’s respect, got it?”

Renji nodded vigorously, “Yeah, ain’t nobody’s business, anyway.”

“Exactly, Kuchiki, and now you, know ‘cause I told you. Retu, Saijin, and that guy from Huangland’s 10th battalion I met up with last night know ‘cause I’ve done ‘em. Ain’t nobody’s business unless I want it to be.”

“Seems fair,” Renji shrugged as best he could with the bags weighing down his arms.

“Speakin’ o’ which, after last night, I might’a gotten knocked up, and if I make it that far, I gotta figure out some excuse to tell ‘em.”

“That might be hard…”

“Nah, anyone below Fifth Seat, and even those two I wonder about: Even though they’re my men, I can’t deny the whole lot of ‘em put together’s still dumber than a grain of rice; they’d believe most anythin’. “

“Uhhhh…” Renji wracked his brain, “Elephantiasis of the gut?”

Kenpachi mulled it over a moment before answering, “Yeah, that’s a good one! Thanks, kid! And it’s pretty easy to just say I found a baby…That’s why you left my squad…”

“Huh?”

“You’re too smart! That’s why you went to Captain Stick-Up-My-Ass!”

Renji considered a polite protest, but Kenpachi was already letting out another roaring laugh, “Just kidding! You kids are fun to mess with!”

“A-ah…”

“By the way…”

“Yes, sir?”

Kenpachi was wildly looking around, “Where the fuck are we?”

It was only then that Renji realised his grave mistake of following his former captain’s lead.

He set down the bags, fishing some change and a paper with the motel’s number out of his pocket, “I’ll go find a phone booth…”

 

“Thanks for helping us get back home, Captain,” Renji said as he collected their bags from the taxi stopped in front of their room.

“”It is no matter for me,” Byakuya said as he placed a more than fair sum in the sunglasses-wearing driver’s outstretched hand. “I am content that you have returned unharmed, and that currency exchange from our land is possible.”

The driver turned around in the lot and sped off before Byakuya could reconsider giving him fifty dollars—he’d not been able to turn eleven blocks into anymore than fifteen taking the longest way back he knew.

 

Renji left the other three to their devices, and stood in front of the door to his and Byakuya’s room that he’d just closed.

Byakuya sat on the bed closest to the door, having gone back to towelling his hair dry, pausing for a moment to gesture at the empty spot next to him, “”Come, Renji.”

Renji sat in the offered spot, biting back a vulgar joke.

“Uh, so I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going ‘cause…Captain Zaraki seems to be… _supportive_ of u-…you and me… having a relationship.”

“Yes, he told me so this morning himself. But I must ask, are _you_?”

“I—I mean, a lot’s happened between us in the past couple days, but, I…I’m beginning to enjoy this new…thing we have going…and also you’re _really_ sexy.”

Byakuya’s eyes widened but a nanometre, but Renji, working day in and day out with him since 1961, could see the difference.

“You _desire_ me after what I told you of myself…and after I robbed you of your _daughter_?”

Renji sighed, his excitement deflating. But he supposed it would be better to be on certain terms before pursuing his lust for his captain.

“You asked me that day you showed up to take her if I had anything to say. I didn’t just say ‘no’ out of defeat—I said ‘no’ because I knew you could provide for her. And you have; the finest clothes, all the food money can buy—she has maids. We were students together—she lived in a family unit, shared with me, three tatami by four tatami wide, shared outhouse with the entire building.”

He shook his head, “You know I once had to knife a doctor to get her care?”

Byakuya looked mildly surprised, “No, I didn’t. Did it work?”

“She’s still alive, right? Yeah, she was, what, barely over a year old, and it’s just a guess that she was three weeks old when I found her. And she got really sick—fever, vomiting, the whole nine yards. I was terrified—I mean, I was what, fifteen? And a street urchin, at that! Anyway, yeah, nearest doctor, only doctor I knew of, refused to see her for anything under 200 kan. ‘Course, I didn’t have any money to my name—so I jumped on him and knifed him in the shoulder. Told him I’d only stop if he saw her.” Renji shrugged, “It worked. Probably not my finest moment, but, well… Rukia was my daughter.”

“She still is, Renji…perhaps not in name, but it was you, not I, that raised her. Hence why I have never taken issue at her being out odd hours if she reports that she was with you. I have given her fineries, to be certain, but you alone are her father. And you fought tremendous odds to raise her happy and healthy. I have never praised you, but that is my failing.”

“I…you say that—I always felt like _I_ was failing her, and when you decided to take her, I thought ‘now she can finally get everything I’ve never been able to provide’.”

“No, Renji. As you may have well figured by now, Hisana was also from Inuduri. She has told me of the horror that life is there…” Byakuya looked Renji dead in the eye, “You did incredibly well.”

Renji dropped his eyes to his lap, “Thanks. That…” He looked up at Byakuya with his head still partially down, “That means a lot to me.”

Byakuya reached his hand halfway over, stopped, then reached out and put his hand atop Renji’s in Renji’s lap.

Renji turned his hand over in Byakuya’s hold and grasped Byakuya’s hand in return, “This is…nice.”


End file.
